In a travel system there are many messages distributed from one place to another. A travel system may typically contain a central data server and a caching architecture composed of a number of different levels of caches distributed throughout the system. The caching architecture acquires updates from a number of different providers which are then communicated from an application server to the different levels of caches. The system works on the basis that no confirmation of the message or messages is required. The system assumes that the message or messages have been well received. The database application server will send messages to a number of central caches on central data servers, which in turn will then send messages to a local cache on a large number of computation servers. These messages are intended to invalidate the content of the caches. They are called invalidation messages. In the typical travel system there may be as many as 100,000 updates each day this equates to a vast number of messages to be dealt with. A problem arises if messages are not received, at which time problems can arise which can cause financial impact on customers. In order to ensure and control data consistency in a distributed caching architecture, asynchronous invalidation messages may be used. The manner in which this is achieved is difficult and time-consuming and has not presently been achieved in an effective way.
A number of systems have been proposed for dealing with auditing airline passenger tickets. One such system has been proposed by Northwest airlines, which uses an expert system audit process to review reports. This system fails to deal with many of the issues associated with the problems of tracking invalidation messages and the like. Similarly, other systems provide fare verification products and mapping and matching products, which again fail to address the problems of tracking invalidation messages.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,604,205 discloses a method and system for state synchronization between at least two devices connected in the same network. The first device sends a message to the second device with a first identifier attached to the message. The second device then applies a specific process to the message which in turn transforms the first identifier into a second identifier. The first device then sends the state request to the second device to request transmission of the second identifier. The comparison module of the first device then compares the first identifier and the second identifier to determine if the state of the first device is synchronized with the state of the second.